This week we took a look at the story around the Ten Commandments and the setting in which God gives them to us.  By do this, we gain a better understanding of what the commandments mean to us.

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Homework:

1. Make sure to spend some time talking about Faith Form Cards with your student.  
2. Discuss and complete the conversation that was started during class about Family Commandments

Additional Ideas and resources:

1. In class, the students began working on a list of Family ten commandments.  The idea is that every group has a common collection of rules and principles that mark who's in and who's out.  Realizing this helps us realize that the Ten Commandments are not just a moral code they are a way that we express our Christian faith.  In giving them to us, God is saying "because this is who you are, this is how you'll act."   Keeping the Commandments becomes a way that we remember who we are.  To understand this, it may be helpful to listen to the This American Life radio show's episode on the Ten Commandments:
   
   
   The Family Commandments exercise was meant to help drive this point home.
   • In class, your student began working on a list of commandments for their family.  Commandments may stated, like “clean your room”.  Some are understood, like “never talk back to your mother”  Others are traditions like “We always eat Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s” or “we always have popcorn on Sunday evening.” Commandments may be things they like and they may be things that they don't like.  After they wrote down everything they could think of, they picked the top 10 most important ones.
   • With the whole family, discuss the list your student developed.  Does everyone else think they are the family commandments?  Are there ones to add or change?  Is there an unstated one people are afraid to mention?
   • How do individuals feel about the commandments?  Are there ones individuals don't like keeping?
   • How do these commandments describe your family?  How do they remind you you're a part of this family?
   • How do your family commandments compare to the Ten Commandments?  Similarities? Differences?
   • How do the Ten Commandments remind us we are Christians?
   • Why do you think it is important to keep your family commandments?  How about the Ten Commandments?
2. How many commandments are there? Depending upon how you're counting and how you divide them, the answer is not quite clear.  We're told in Exodus 34:28 and Deuteronomy 4:13 that there were ten, and then given the list of them, but how to divide them up and which statements are commandments and which should be combined with another is harder to tell. Try it for yourself. Below is the text from Exodus 20 with the verse numbers removed. Try to set aside your memory of the commandments and that there has to be ten. Now try dividing the text into individual commandments. How many do you come up with?  
   

   Then God spoke all these words:
   I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I theLord ,your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lordyour God, for the Lordwill not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal.  You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.  You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

   • How many different commandments did you come up with?
   • Different denominations and religions count them differently too. Thre are three different numberings. Click the chart to the right to see them compared. Why do you think there are these differences? Can you tell something about the religion by differences? Which system of counting do Lutherans use? Remember to check the Small Catechism to make sure you remember correctly.